Your body covers mine like a tulip, stamens and all.
Late in the middle of the night I used to go out
and dig holes in the ground to plant seeds in, the soil
dark and sweet as the hollows of your knees.
I wish I could climb your body like a vine, like a beanstalk,
like the longest staircase in the world.
I go digging in your thighs, searching for tiny animal bones,
but end up finding layers of dogwood blossoms,
stacked high as a mountain.
Your wristbones are as delicate as bee’s wings, fragile
as camellia stems.
Broad and smooth, your chest rises with the weight of your breathing.
I long to cup your breaths in my hand, trap them there
til your throat closes. I want to keep you in a jar
and pull you out every so often
to hold up
to the light like flowers pressed between the pages of books.
Kiss me hard, I tell you.
Kiss me harder.
Harder.
The lilacs swollen on their branches, the oak trees, the sweet tea roses.
When your hipbones cup mine
I feel like the hull of a ship, lost at sea amid a storm.
There are raging tidal waves out here.
You slide into me softer than pollen,
crawl up my ribs like an insect.
You were the prettiest boy I ever loved,
and the space between your legs
holds me like a flower in a vase.
Quietly, tenderly, we lie marooned on my bed
in a cocoon, our wings gently growing
and folding around one another
until the time when they will unfurl,
and all will be light.